Published on The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com)
Volunteers, vets spay 392 stray cats
"They won't take you to the vet. You're obviously not their favorite pet. Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, It's not your fault."
This line from the song "Smelly Cat" by the character Phoebe Buffay from U.S. TV series Friends might well be one of the best ways to describe the condition of stray cats in Jakarta.
Millions of cats roam the streets of Jakarta; some are lucky enough to get a proper home and food, but most are either starving, neglected, sick or dying.
"We have to control the stray cat population if we want to improve their welfare," said Femke de Haas, co-founder of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN), earlier this week at JAAN's clinic in Kemang, South Jakarta.
Since mid-October, JAAN has worked with volunteer veterinarians and vet assistants from the Netherlands and Indonesia to provide free spaying and neutering services for homeless cats around Jakarta and Pramuka Island, the capital of Thousand Islands regency.
On the last day of the current phase of operations, she and her colleagues treated eight cats they netted off the streets. So far they have neutered and spayed 392 cats.
"It's not much compared with the number of stray cats in Jakarta, but this is only the first step," Dr. Ingrid Lewin, a volunteer vet from the Netherlands, told The Jakarta Post.
"Reducing the number of stray cats can take dozens of years, but the attempt was made in Holland and it worked."
The Netherlands, she added, once faced the same problem of too many stray cats roaming its streets.
"They were skinny and starving, but still producing litters," Dr. Lewin said. An admitted cat lover, she said she could not bear to see cats suffer, so began spaying and neutering them.
Her 35 years of efforts finally paid off. "Today we rarely see ownerless cats in Holland," she said.
In Jakarta, Dr. Lewin and her husband Dr. Karal Lewin, also a vet, worked with volunteer vet assistants Mirjam Bos and Desiree Gasteren from the Netherlands, as well as Indonesian Gabriel Rinaldi and Canadian Jennifer Word.
Femke highlighted public participation as one of the most important factors in the effort to improve street animals' welfare.
"We want people to better understand how to keep the cat population healthy. We visit schools to provide information, and we also promote and raise awareness of our spaying and neutering program among people in housing complexes," Femke said.
To their delight, JAAN's activities in Pramuka Island and Jakarta have received much support from the surrounding communities. On Pramuka Island in particular, Femke said, residents came to them bringing stray cats as soon as they learned about the service. In Jakarta, however, the volunteers have had to seek out the stray cats themselves.
JAAN plans to continue the spaying and neutering program on a monthly basis.
"With this program in hand, we hope in the future we will see no more abandoned cats on Jakarta's streets," Femke said.
